Late last week, Facebook quietly made its entry into the work chat (enterprise real-time messaging) arena with the very limited release of its appropriately-named Work Chat application. There was no announcement in the Facebook Newsroom; the app just showed up in the Google Play store and was called out in a TechCrunch article. Work Chat is available for Android devices only now; an iOS version is in development and expected to be available soon.
Work Chat is the corporate equivalent of Facebook Messenger. Those applications appear to have the same user experience and feature set, although TechCrunch noted that Work Chat allows individuals to temporarily turn off their notifications, so as to not be disturbed when on vacation and when other personal activities are prioritized.
Work Chat is intended solely for organizations that are Facebook at Work customers. Anyone can download and install the app, but it will not work without a Facebook at Work login.
Facebook at Work is still in closed beta, so very few companies and individuals will be able to use Work Chat today.
Is This a Market Disruptor?
While it’s impossible to gauge the actual market impact of Facebook’s Work Chat at this point, we can draw some conclusions about its potential effect. First, it will boost awareness of, and interest in, chat-based, real-time communication tools in organizations of all size. Individuals who use Facebook and its Messenger app in the personal lives will push their IT departments to consider the Facebook at Work and Work Chat combination.
In all likelihood, many organizations will try Work Chat, at least in a pilot implementation. It’s been reported that Facebook at Work will be available in a free version that will likely have a limited feature set and support. If that is true and the same applies to Work Chat, then a company’s cost to try the app is negligible.
Facebook’s land and expand strategy for enterprise sales may indeed work and, if it does, Work Chat would likely be swept along with the tide of Facebook at Work adoption. Facebook has already said that some of the roughly 300 companies in the Facebook at Work trial program have announced their intent to scale its use next year. Heineken has already grown its user base from 40 to 550. Royal Bank of Scotland plans to have 30,000 employees on the platform by the end of Q1 2016 and aims to roll it out to all 100,000 employees before the end of the year.
It is entirely possible that Work Chat will see those kind of adoption numbers as well, resulting in a decent share of the enterprise real-time chat market segment for Facebook. Other vendors of communication and collaboration platforms, suites, and applications should not dismiss the potential impact that Facebook at Work and Work Chat could have on their revenue streams. If Facebook can build an enterprise sales capacity and execute well, they will become a formidable competitor.
